The present invention relates to transport apparatuses, and more specifically relates to improvements to transport apparatuses that have a plurality of transporting vehicles.
Conventional transport apparatuses have been provided with a plurality of article transporting vehicles that move along a shared travel route, control means for managing those transport vehicles, and connecting means that can connect an article transporting vehicle that is positioned at an retrieval location, which is removed from the travel route, and a station of the retrieval location. The connecting means includes connection detection means for detecting whether or not an article transporting vehicle is connected to a station of the retrieval location. Each of the article transporting vehicles is provided with a connected member that is capable of connecting to the connecting means, and vehicle-side communication means that is capable of communicating with optical transmission-type control-side communication means provided in the control means. The control means manages the movement of the plurality of article transporting vehicles through communication between the control-side communication means and the vehicle-side communication means.
Transport apparatuses such as these are employed in automated warehouses, for example. In such an instillation, the control means controls the plurality of article transporting vehicles through communication between the control-side communication means and the vehicle-side communication means and moves them back and forth over a single travel route, in the process using the plurality of article transporting vehicles to transport articles to and from a plurality of article transferring locations that are provided along the travel route.
With such transport apparatuses, if some of the plurality of article transporting vehicles are to be moved to an retrieval location that is continuous with the travel route in order to perform maintenance work or due to technical difficulties with that article transporting vehicle, then conventionally, a control means that controls two article transporting vehicles determines that the two article transporting vehicles are capable of traveling over the travel route as long as the connecting means is not connected to the connected member of either of the article transporting vehicles, which is determined from information detected by the connection detection means. When the connecting means is connected to the connected member of one of the article transporting vehicles positioned in the retrieval location, the control means determines that although that article transporting vehicle is not capable of moving, the other article transporting vehicle can traveling along the travel route. Further, when it is determined that the two article transporting vehicles can run along the travel route, then the control means controls the operation of the two article transporting vehicles that are capable of running along the travel route such that they do not collide, and when the connecting means is connected to the connected member of an article transporting vehicle positioned in the retrieval location, the control means controls the operation of the one article transporting vehicle that can run along the travel route such that it can move over the entire range of the travel route (see JP 2003-267518A, for example).
However, with the conventional transport apparatus described above, whether or not the article transporting vehicles other than those positioned at the retrieval location can run over the travel route is determined based on the detection information of the connection detection means, which is obtained through connection of the article transporting vehicle that is positioned in the retrieval location and the retrieval location by the connection means. Therefore, if damage to or misdetection by the connection detection means leads to the article transporting vehicle that is positioned at the retrieval location being detected as connected to the retrieval location even though it is not connected, then the control means determines that the article transporting vehicle that is located on the travel route is located at the retrieval location, creating a risk that that the article transporting vehicle that is located on the travel route but that has been determined to be located at the retrieval location will collide with the article transporting vehicle.